Hello all. My name is Jason. I have horrible credit. Most of it is from student loans and medical bills. I have never had a credit card , mortgage , or financing. I am currently married , turn 30 in a week , and have two kids. We are looking to apply for a USDA loan for a home in the next year if possible. My wife has bad credit as well , I'm not sure what all , but I know there are some car loans and some medical bills. Either way , we are looking to do this right. I am currently financing a toolbox at around 6k before interest 10k after interest. She has a utility bill that we are currently fighting with because they are not taking the amounts off that we are paying , but that isn't the issue. They submitted 398$ to collections , after we paid the amounts off that we owed. We were never informed they were going to collections , nor did anything get shut off. I have been reading on here for a few days now , and I know I need to validate the debts . I have seen some things say to verify your information with the credit agencies , and that may get some things taken off as well (will it, because there are things I have not filed for) . Then do the debt validation , then settle/pay/sue as needed.I kind of need some guidance as to where to start. Is this a valid process? Would I need to submit forms for each of the three companies (and for each individual obviously) , for each step of the way? (ie: I send 3 address/info validations and so does she , then we send 6 validation letter?) ... I have a lot more questions , but the first step or two should take us plenty of time. Thanks -Jason
If I was just starting out, this is the process that I would use. 1) Get copies of all three credit reports. 2) Request validation from all COLLECTION AGENCIES, *IMPORTANT* VALIDATION only applies to COLLECTION AGENCIES. 3) If there are disputes with any of the companies on my credit reports, I would make sure that I put those disputes, IN WRITING. This step does include ORIGINAL CREDITORS, (and with COLLECTION AGENCIES, I would put the dispute in with the validation letter, if I know enough about the account to dispute!) 4) Once I know that the CAs and OCs have received the validation letters and disputes, I would write a letter to each CRA disputing all of the accounts that validation and disputes were sent to. Because of needing to know when the letters in 2 & 3 are received for step 4, I usually utilize facsimile so that I know exactly when it was received and it comes out cheaper than almost $5.00 a letter for sending them CMRRR... The reason why hopefully some things fall off the first time through the 4th step, is that when a CA receives the validation letter (if it's timely), they are required to cease collection activity until they OBTAIN and MAIL validation. If they can't obtain and mail the validation within the 30 days that they have to respond to the CRA, they are required to delete the trade line.
Make sure that you are sending your validation letters to the creditors, not the credit bureaus. For the longest time I had no idea that I was doing that wrong and I was never able to get my erroneous debt removed. Wish I would have known sooner to send all requests directly to the debt buyers. Sorry to hear about your situation and good luck in getting your credit back!
tim; You don't send VALIDATION letters to CREDITORS, but to the COLLECTION AGENCIES and JUNK DEBT BUYERS. When using the term CREDITORS it's typically referring to the ORIGINAL CREDITORS, not the Collection Agencies or Junk Debt Buyers. See my step #2... My step #3, does specifically include CREDITORS because it includes making sure that any disputes with the original account are on the record.
Ok , that is pretty uch the order I figured , I just wasn't sure where to start it all. I am on creditkarma and I can access my reports regularly , and we got my wife figured out too. I am at work , so I wont get into things heavy now , but will come on later tonight and post my issues and see how to go about them in the best orders. My only question right now ; I paid off my student loans with tax money for the past couple years , and here is what the karma shows for these accounts. accounts. These delinquencies may have occurred at any point over the last 4 years. Account: Type: Status: Total Late Payments Payment Status: 1. FEDLOAN Student Closed 2 0% 2. FEDLOAN Student Closed 2 0% 3. AES/PHEAA Student Closed 10 70% Now it shows them all closed , but with 0% on the two , and 70%... I have not received anything about these since a year ago when the IRS kept my refund to pay off my loans. This past year for 2013 I received a refund and had no notice of any student loan issue.... I fought with one loan company because I did not apply for the loan but they did not believe a word of it. So I let the tax money pay it just to get rid of it. let me know what this means... Thanks -Jason
Get your credit reports here: https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action Credit Karma was not meant to be used in the way you need. You need hard copies of your reports direct from each CRA. CK is a good monitoring tool, and don't even bother worrying about the FAKO score it gives.
I have been trying to get the anualcreditreport to work , but there are always questions that do not apply to me , and they won't get me through to my free report . I can pay 7-15$ to buy one of course. I did get my Transunion printed ,and I'm going to get started with that. I will have to figure out how to get me free report without being able to do it directly ... also : has anyone used the Transunion or other sites to open a dispute online? It seems like that would be easy and fast , timestamped , and secured . Any downside? ythanks -Jason
If they are asking questions that don't apply to you, there should be an option along the lines of "NONE OF THE ABOVE", if you continue to have problems with the automated request, you can download and print the mail request form and have the paper reports sent to you, instead of the electronic report. If "NONE OF THE ABOVE" still doesn't work, there could be an account which is 'accidentally' on your credit report which is mucking up the woodwork, either that is incorrectly placed on your report, or mischaracterized as something that it's not, mortgage, auto-loan, etc. One of the reasons that they ask multiple questions, including ones that don't apply is to make sure that you can't guess to access someone else's credit report.
